The AllTrials initiative calls for all clinical trials to be reported and for the “full methods and the results” of each trial to be published.

Currently negative results are poorly recorded and positive results are overhyped, leading to what Goldacre calls ‘research fraud’, misleading doctors about the drugs they are prescribing and misleading patients about the drugs they are taking.

As well as continuing to push for stronger policies and practises that support the release of information about clinical trials, we would like to see a public repository of reports and results that doctors, patients and researchers can access and add to. We need an open database of clinical trials.

Over the past few days we’ve been corresponding with Ben and others on the AllTrials about how we might be able to work together to create such a database – building on the prototyping work that was presented at last year’s Strata event.

I think that we should also have an open register where anyone can log an adverse event that they have had from a medication, a prophylactic treatment such as immunisation, or from the use of a medical device.